The scene, in black and white, is a press conference with Bob Dylan. I chose this scene because it comes from a unique film where six different actors play Bob Dylan. In this scene, Cate Blanchett takes the stage.
http://www.spike.com/video-clips/bl4thr/im-not-there-cate-blanchett-is-bob-dylan-2
What is unique here is that Cate plays a man. The film this scene comes from is “I’m Not There”. Academy Award nominated, its unique perspective on the nature of people makes it a good choice for a derridean reading, or poststructuralist reading. Derrida’s deconstruction and rejection of binary structure and rejection of man/woman is exactly what director Todd Haynes does with different characters in the film. In another part of the film, Marcus Carl Franklin plays a small African American boy, another portrayal of Bob Dylan.
Haynes blurs the lines between black/white, male/female and attempts to reconstruct our concept of the famous “Bob Dylan”. Blanchett, with her messy hair and sunglasses, looks simultaneously masculine and feminine. Asked about Shakespeare, she calls him a “queen” and “cosmic amphetamine brain”. Her frail body and shaky demeanor add to the “cool” persona that Blanchett gives the character. “Who says I’m sincere? No more sincere than you are. You just want me to say what you want me to say” she replies to the arts editor and host of BBC. Is Blanchett’s character genuine? If looking at it from a gender perspective, Blanchett is actually not being genuine, as she is a woman playing a man. She does not know what it is actually like to be a man, what is it like to think like a man, walk like a man, talk like a man. What is it like to experience sex as a male?
Rather, Blanchett is acting in a world where binary definitions exist. She is able to exist as both female and male. Her identity is confused, lost in a way, similar to the message Haynes is spreading through “I’m Not There” and his characters portrayals of Bob Dylan.
Good choice of video! This clip, which I believe centers on the notion of "sincerity," provides a ton of material for analyzing gender binaries. After all, the idea of being "sincere" or true to oneself and the construction of gender go hand-in-hand. Most people believe that sex is an aspect of one's nature that one absolutely cannot change: you are born male, you stay male, you ARE male. To act not in accordance with the body you were born into would be to go against your true self, to be "insincere." But isn't it also true that a given male "performs" maleness just as much as a female, such as Cate Blanchett, performs maleness? I would argue that gender is performative and thus "insincere," regardless of who is performing what gender.
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